


subtlety

by orphan_account



Category: THE9 (Band), 偶像练习生 | Idol Producer (TV), 青春有你2 | Youth With You 2 (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Eventual Romance, Explicit Language, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, Jiejie kink, Praise Kink, Smut, because i always write angst, because they are both softies, because when you want to read subby yuxin you write it yourself, bottom!liu yuxin, but xueer helps out..., i hate myself for it too, i hate myself part 2, its when theyre all practicing for I'm Not Yours, lowkey because we all know yuxin has that inferiority complex, more like hopeful ending, okay im done im going to destroy myself now, rated m literally just for xueers mouth LOL, sorry - Freeform, thigh grinding, top!kong xueer, yk when yuxin didnt remember that one step and shuxin called her out for it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:15:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25996588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Because, oh, does Yuxin want. She wants all of her, so badly, and all she can do is watch.
Relationships: Kong Xue'er/Liu Yuxin
Comments: 3
Kudos: 38





	subtlety

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Man-Eater](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14530950) by [whiskerprince](https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiskerprince/pseuds/whiskerprince). 



> hey this is my first smut since eighth grade, and also first wlw smut, so please bear with me. it's not even that smutty tbh just yuxin being dramatic and gay

Yuxin thinks she’s subtle. It’s been years with her, after all, and not once has she slipped up. Not once has Xuuer noticed anything.  _ Or maybe she just never did anything about it _ , the thought flashes across her mind before she stifles it. Xueer couldn’t have noticed, or else she would have at least confronted Yuxin about it. She might seem like a delicate, fragile little beauty, but Yuxin knew better. Behind that front was years of sweat and tears, packed deep into her bones from the steps she took, memorizing and mastering thousands of choreographies. Xueer was tougher than most girls she knew, and that was saying something, being in the idol industry. If she knew, or suspected, she wouldn’t have let Yuxin get away with it.

It’s dim in the practice room, only half the lights on. The blue and white decor of the walls shifts into a darkish, grayish-blue. Xueer stands a few feet away, slumped against the mirrors, the dirty white (and fraying) charger cable connected to the phone in her hand. The soft glow of the screen lights up her face, framing her cheeks and making her hair appear a shade darker, like wine red. Yuxin looks and looks and looks, drinking it in. Before she can shift her gaze. The want isn’t a strange feeling; after all, it’s been almost five years together in some sense of the word. Still, it’s like an itch crawling under her skin, setting a low fire through her veins.

Because, oh, does Yuxin  _ want _ . She wants all of her, so badly, and all she can do is watch.

In a second, Xueer’s eyes flicker up from the screen, and Yuxin, caught in spiraling thoughts, doesn’t move fast enough. Xueer stares at her. Yuxin stares back. Something settles in the back of her throat, a type of heat that she knows will burn her heart in the morning.

“Yuxin,” Xueer smiles. It’s easy for her, but Yuxin has never learned the practiced way she can brighten a room with a quirk of the lips. “What are you looking at?”

“You,” Yuxin states. It’s simple. It’s honest. It’s everything Yuxin feels, bundled in one word.

Xueer sighs. Even the sound feels loud in the slowly quieting atmosphere of the room. “Let’s practice. I’m done with my break.”

“Okay,” Yuxin says, standing up a little too quickly. She stumbles and Xueer is there in a flash, steadying her with warm (too warm) hands on her arm. She pulls away the next instant, but Yuxin has yet to catch her breath.

“We can go over that part you were confused with during practice with Lisa laoshi today.” Xueer looks steadily at her reflection in the mirror. Yuxin nods.

“The steps. You remember them?” Yuxin nods again. There’s no need for words between them, as they fall easily into the rhythm. This rhythm between them, thrumming in the air, is what Yuxin has been chasing for the past year and a half without Xueer by her side. Now, it’s back, and Yuxin forgets the times she didn’t have it.

As Xueer counts beats, loudly and firmly in the growing darkness, Yuxin watches her in the mirror instead of herself. This time, though, it means something different to her. She wants to get caught.  _ Look at me _ , Yuxin pleads in her mind.  _ Notice it. Notice me.  _

Perhaps she didn’t think through this wish well enough, because Xueer, contrary to normal behavior, glances at her. Yuxin moves her gaze away. It goes like this for a few more minutes, before Yuxin is focusing on Xueer’s legs, her thin waist, the crop top riding a little high on her chest. Her focus is broken as Xueer abruptly turns to face her fully. A slight sheen of sweat covers her face. Yuxin thinks,  _ She’s beautiful _ .

“Yuxin,” it’s a new tone of voice on Xueer’s tongue. A different tone. Yuxin snaps to attention.  _ What is happening?  _ “What. Are you looking at?” 

“Just watching your moves,” Yuxin swallows. “So I can make sure I’m doing them right.” It’s a long sentence for her. Xueer doesn’t say anything, just scrutinizes her with dark eyes, tilting her head to the side. A strand of hair brushes her cheek, and Yuxin’s fingers twitch minutely by her side. 

This time, though, Xueer  _ notices _ . She zeroes in on Yuxin’s fingers for a second, before turning her attention back to her. Yuxin feels the tension in the room slowly changing. It isn’t a particularly hot night, but the room crowds in around her, suffocating her in simmering heat.  _ Something  _ hangs in the air between them, heavy and full.  _ What is happening?  _ She thinks again.

“Yuxin,” Xueer steps forward in time with her name. Yuxin moves back. “You think I can’t tell when you’re lying?”

“What do you mean?” Yuxin silently curses her voice for the strain. 

“I mean,” Another step forward. Another step back. This push and pull-- _ What is happening?  _ “I want you to answer me. Truthfully.  _ Yuxin _ , what are you looking at?”

The emphasis on her name is accusatory and dripping with not venom, but something darker. It’s filling Yuxin with an urge to run. Run. But she just shivers slightly. Xueer, more perceptive than Yuxin had even thought, notices.

“Yuxin, you can be honest with me. I won’t hurt you,” At this, Xueer smiles. It’s a smile Yuxin’s never seen before, all predator and sharp, glinting teeth. She shivers again, harder this time. Xueer’s eyes drink it all in, greedily.

“At least, not too much.” Yuxin’s back thuds against a hard, solid surface, and she almost jumps out of her skin. She belatedly realizes that Xueer had backed her up into the wall of mirrors. She’s hovering closer now, because Yuxin has nowhere to go anymore.

“I-I,” Yuxin flushes at the sound of her stutter.

Xueer slides a hand up to lightly rest on the glass, inches away from Yuxin’s neck. They’re the same height, but at this moment, Yuxin knows she’s trapped.  _ Fuck _ , she mentally berates herself.  _ Why did you do this?  _ Because even now, she knows it’s her fault. She started it. Xueer noticed, and she did what Yuxin knew she would do.

Xueer smiles again, this time with less predator and more amusement.  _ This is a game to her _ , Yuxin realizes, and flushes harder. 

“Tell me, Yuxin, why you need to look at my waist, my chest, when I’m trying to teach you the steps?” Yuxin’s gaze, resting on Xueer’s collarbone, outlined in black and white in the dimness, flickers back to Xueer’s. She wishes she hadn’t looked. Her eyes are so,  _ so  _ dark.

“To see--” Yuxin’s voice comes out a little raspy. “To see how you hold your torso when you--” 

“ _ Lies. _ ” Xueer all but hisses at her. Yuxin shivers again, but doesn’t stop. She’s trembling like a leaf caught in a storm. Xueer’s storm.

“I-I don’t know what you want--” Xueer swoops in, and Yuxin, acting on reflex, on years of pure  _ want  _ bubbling under her surface, leans forward without thinking. Their lips brush and Xueer pulls away immediately. Yuxin gasps a little, then clamps her mouth shut. But it’s too late. She’s already given herself away.

“Well, lucky for you,” Xueer reaches to lightly brush against Yuxin’s neck. Yuxin nearly combusts on the spot. “I know exactly what you want.”

At that, Xueer backs away slightly. Yuxin breathes a sigh of relief. It doesn’t last. 

“Take off your shirt, Yuxin.” Xueer’s eyes, a little farther away, are swirling with something unrecognizable. A small smirk rests on her face. 

“W-what?” Yuxin gapes. “Xueer--”

In a moment, Xueer is back again. Her presence itself pins Yuxin against the wall, unable to disobey. “ _ Do it.” _

Shakily, Yuxin reaches down and tugs on the hem of her shirt. Her fingers grasp unstably at the edges and she struggles for half a second before sliding it up and over her upper body and letting it drop to the floor in one smooth motion. Unfortunately, it brings her closer to Xueer’s face. Xueer takes the opportunity to press a smoldering kiss in the dip between her collarbone and neck. Yuxin bites her lip to hold back a pathetic sound, knees almost buckling, throwing her head back against the mirrors. The impact knocks some clarity into her rapidly clouding brain.

“Good,” Xueer offers her a smile, and Yuxin all but melts inside. Xueer, suddenly attuned to all of Yuxin,  _ notices _ .

“I see,” Xueer muses. “You want to be a good girl for me, don’t you, Yuxin?”

If the words didn’t kill her, the way Xueer is looking at her, the way Xueer seems to  _ want  _ her right back, would. Huffing a small laugh, Xueer steps away from Yuxin again. Yuxin has a moment of confusion before she realizes, and a small whine tears itself from her throat. Xueer, busy staring at her waist up to her neck, looks up at her face sharply. Yuxin closes her eyes against the onslaught of what she now knows is how she looked when, when she--

“What, are you embarrassed?” Xueer’s tone takes on a mocking lilt. “Can’t handle me eyefucking you the way you always have, the way you always do to me?”

Yuxin’s eyes spring wide open at that. She opens her mouth, but has no words. Xueer cuts in.

“You really think I’m  _ that  _ dense? You think, after years of,” she almost slams her weight against Yuxin, slotting a knee in between her legs, “Of you  _ looking  _ at me,  _ taking  _ me all in, without a word, as if you thought I’d never notice, you can just pull the same play tonight, and I’ll let you go? Of course not.” The predatory gaze is back again. Like Xueer is going to devour her whole, and of course Yuxin would let her. “Yuxin, you above all people should know that actions have consequences.”

Yuxin whispers. “I-I’m sorry, I--”

“No, you’re not sorry,” Xueer shifts her knee higher, and Yuxin prays to all the deities above that this stops. Deep down, she knows that it won’t, and she knows she doesn’t want it to. “You’re just selfish.”

At this, Yuxin can’t hold it in. “Xueer, really, I’m--”

“Fine, then,” Xueer finally raises her knee high enough to press against Yuxin’s crotch, and Yuxin’s head falls forward as the room spins. It’s so much and not enough, all at once. “I’m letting you take what you want. C’mon,  _ Yuxin _ .”

It’s back again, the same tone she used when this had all started. But it really had started all before that, hadn’t it? Yuxin curses under her breath as the pressure on her groin brings her blood to a boil. She’s completely under Xueer’s control, and Xueer knows it. She loves it. 

And so does Yuxin.

Gritting her teeth to stop them from chattering as she shakes, Yuxin shamefully ducks her head to protect herself somehow, someway, from Xueer’s gaze. It also leaves her neck bare to Xueer’s attacks. At the first touch of her lips to Yuxin’s skin, her hips jolt, her clit catching on Xueer’s knee, the force on it almost driving her insane. “F-fuck,  _ Xueer _ ,”

“Come on,” Xueer breathes into Yuxin’s ear, sending a jolt of electricity from head to toe. “I know you like this. You like being reduced to grinding on my knee to get off, don’t you?”

Yuxin whimpers, fucking  _ whimpers _ , at that. She can’t stop herself at this point, rolling her hips down, already  _ so  _ close. Xueer, of course,  _ notices  _ that too. 

“Already so close, Yuxin?” Yuxin can feel the smirk spreading across her face. “You’re so sensitive, baby.” Yuxin can’t tell if the name that Xueer lets fall so casually from her lips is accidental or calculated, but it makes her fall apart all the same. A string of incoherent mumbles leave her mouth as she pants, drawing in air that seems nonexistent in this room, in this space.

“Xueer, please, I-ngh,” Xueer brings her knee just a little higher, and Yuxin swears she feels her mind shut down. It’s simultaneously humiliating and exhilarating that Xueer is the one to make her like this. 

“What, Yuxin,” Xueer leans back a little, letting her knee drop a smidge. Yuxin practically chokes as her hands fly out to grab onto Xueer’s waist, pulling her back. “Tell me what you  _ want _ .”

“Please, I-I, Xueer,  _ please _ , jiejie, let me come,” Yuxin begs, full on  _ begs _ , because all she knows is Xueer, Xueer, close to her, so close and so much pleasure. 

Xueer’s breath hitches. In her pleasure-addled state, Yuxin glances up to see her face screwed up in lust, a small, sweet gasp leaving her lips, and realizes that she’s not the only one wanting. 

“What did you just call me?” Yuxin is close to tears at this point, all sense of rhythm lost in the way she erratically grinds down on Xueer’s knee, wetness seeping through her sweatpants. She’s  _ so, so  _ close.

“X-Xueer, jiejie” Yuxin cries out, unrestrained, pleading,  _ falling _ . “Please--”

Xueer, mouth still agape, wonder clouding her gaze, nods. “Go ahead, Yuxin, baby. Come for me.”

At that, Yuxin lets herself go, and it’s as if an entire supernova exploded behind her eyelids. She lets the moans and incomprehensible noises fall, mixed in with intervals of  _ Xueer _ , and  _ jiejie _ . Xueer gently coaxes her through orgasm, shifting her knee to better allow Yuxin to gently rut against it as her body shudders and slumps forward.

Blearily, Yuxin opens her eyes to see Xueer smiling fondly at her. This is her favorite type of smile, the one that truly gives Xueer the nickname of princess.

“That was cute,” Xueer laughs, the sound like tinkling bells. “ _ Jiejie _ .”

Yuxin feels her cheeks heat up in a mixture of embarrassment and happiness. “Did you like it?” Her voice comes out a bit cracked, and she blushes even harder at the way Xueer looks at her as if she  _ notices _ .

“Yes, actually,” Xueer runs her fingers softly through Yuxin’s hair, letting her leg fall down. “I did.”

Yuxin notices the wetness on Xueer’s knee and grimaces, saying, “Sorry.” Xueer looks down and once again, just laughs. 

“You really made a mess, huh,” Xueer just leans over and grabs a tissue off the counter next to the door, wiping it down cleanly. Yuxin averts her gaze. The room is still dim, but she feels like the shadows are closing in and she has nowhere to go. At Yuxin’s lack of response, Xueer looks up. Yuxin looks away. 

Clicking her tongue, Xueer’s nails are under her chin, gently tugging her head up. Her expression is so tender, so loving, that Yuxin wants to look away again. “Yuxin, baby, what’s wrong?”

She doesn’t speak for a while. The silence ticks almost unbearably, more and more worry clouding Xueer’s face, that finally she breaks. Unnoticedly, tears spring up at the corners of her eyes, one tear rolling down her face. Xueer swipes it away with her thumb, cupping her face in her hands, so warm.

“Yuxin, please, talk to me?” Xueer’s used to having to do this, to pull the words out of her when her mind is so busy judging her next step she forgot the previous one. 

“I-I’m just scared,” Yuxin sniffles slightly. “What if we--if I--if we don’t make it?” She draws in a shaky breath. “Together?”

Xueer’s brows furrow. Yuxin knows that Xueer isn’t immune to this insecurity; hell, this whole competition  _ is  _ the insecurity. And to be honest, based on current ranking, Xueer should be the one breaking down, not Yuxin. But she can’t help it. The thought of being in a group without Xueer--it’s unthinkable. Debuting solo she could take. But not being surrounded by people, words, thoughts, without Xueer to help her take them all in and sort them all out.

After a pause, Xueer quietly starts. Yuxin strains to catch her voice. “We’re going to be okay,” Xueer smiles at her, and Yuxin sees tears in her eyes, startling her out of her emotional whirlwind for a moment. “We can make it. We were born for this, and--” at this, Xueer laughs a little. It’s the most beautiful sound Yuxin has heard. “Besides, fate put us together once. It will happen again.”

Yuxin knows it's just comforting words. Nevertheless, she’s still comforted. There’s a difference when it comes from Xueer, because Xueer doesn’t give these words easily. Both of them are realistic in the face of uncertainty. Maybe that’s why they’re so good for each other.

Yuxin hadn’t even noticed she had started thinking about them, really being  _ together _ , until then. Sharply, she glances back at Xueer, whose gaze is steady. Something flickers in her eyes and disappears. Yuxin wonders what it is.

“Xueer, uh,” she hesitates. “Was that, was this--” she gestures awkwardly. “What--”

“It’s whatever you want it to be,” Xueer replies. Moving closer, she tugs one of Yuxin’s hands, clutched at her sides; unfurling her fingers, she slips Yuxin’s hands into hers. 

“I want it to be--” Yuxin pauses, searching Xueer’s gaze. It’s unwavering, open, and genuine and hopeful and  _ Xueer _ . “I want it to be real.” When she voices it out loud, she almost winces at how strange it sounds. How unrealistic it is, whether now or later or even in a few years. She knows where they are. She knows what she feels is different, and not in a way people often appreciate.

Without replying, Xueer just leans in. Yuxin’s eyes widen before she feels Xueer’s lips on hers, small and soft and sweet and so  _ Xueer _ , before she closes her eyes and kisses back, passionate but chaste. Xueer pulls back. Yuxin chases after, and this time Xueer doesn’t stop her, but instead pecks at her lips again. 

“I want it to be real, too.” 

**Author's Note:**

> if you know me in real life and read this, no you didn't! bye!


End file.
